SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Before there were national lotteries and billion-dollar jackpots, there was Publishers Clearing House prizes. For almost 60 years, the Prize Patrol from the publishing house would knock on people's doors with balloons and oversized checks.
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UNIDENTIFIED PHC EMPLOYEE: Are you ready for this?
CHRIS: Yep.
UNIDENTIFIED PHC EMPLOYEE: Chris, you won $1 million...
CHRIS: Yes. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED PHC EMPLOYEE: ...From Publishers Clearing House.
CHRIS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED PHC EMPLOYEE: There you go.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Oh, my God.
SIMON: The company promised to pay winners thousands of dollars for the rest of their lives. Tamar Veatch of Cottage Grove, Oregon, was one. She remembers that day that she and her husband got the knock on the door in 2021.
TAMAR VEATCH: He saw everybody outside. And he's just like, honey, there's people with balloons and a big sign, you know, out there. And I'm just like, what? And so I go look out, and I'm just like, oh, my gosh.
SIMON: For four years, her family received over $200,000 a year. They were promised that amount for the rest of their lives, and it was going to extend even into their daughter's lifetime.
VEATCH: We paid off debt, of course. And some of the first purchases were basically traveling, going to countries that we had always wanted to go to. We both got new cars. I got an Audi S8, and he got a Porsche.
SIMON: Tamar Veatch said their lives were profoundly changed.
VEATCH: We both grew up poor, so we wanted to, you know, make sure that we did this right.
SIMON: Publishers Clearing House was started by a Long Island family in 1953. They sold magazine subscriptions for different publications at the same time. And in 1967, the company started its first direct mail sweepstakes. Customers entered for a chance to win prizes, even if they didn't buy a magazine subscription. Publishers Clearing House said it gave away over $500 million in prizes. But in February, Tamar Veatch said the checks just stopped. She tried to get an answer why.
VEATCH: We kept sending emails, and the lady that helped us in the very beginning, we tried to contact her. But she had retired already, so she didn't work there anymore. And so we were just like, what is going on?
SIMON: Then the news broke.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Publishers Clearing House is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The decades-old marketing and sweepstakes company hopes to shift away from direct mail, magazine subscriptions and selling merchandise.
SIMON: The company that acquired it said it would now only cover prizes awarded after July 15 of this year. It's unclear how many people will no longer receive checks for prizes they were told they had won for the rest of their lives. But Tamar Veatch knows she's one of them.
VEATCH: We felt betrayed, for one. It was the deception. So it was like, it was anger, but intense sadness, as well, 'cause you think about your kids. You think about, you know, the plans that you had made.
SIMON: She has a military pension to fall back on, but says it's just not going to be the same.
VEATCH: It's just sad because it's like, now it's going to take, you know, longer to do things. You know, that kind of thing. You know, we had to sell our cars 'cause we couldn't afford it anymore.
SIMON: Tamar Veatch of Cottage Grove, Oregon. Publishers Clearing House did not respond to NPR's request for comment.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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